> Museum director Lasse Andersson said that he had laughed out loud when he first saw the two blank canvasses in 2021, and decided to show the works anyway.
I would have thought choosing to exhibit the two pieces after inspecting them would be seen as acceptance by the museum.
Headline is slightly misleading. He doesn't have to pay back his base fee and and actual material costs. What he does have to pay back is the additional money he was supposed to spend on the work, plus legal fees. When he pitched the work and got the commission he said an annual average danish salary in cash would be integrated into the work, and the museum agreed to give him this money on top of his fees. When the money wasn't used in this way in the work the museum received, the museum decided they wanted that money back.
“The artist shall utilise the bank notes to visually reproduce a specific artwork, such as the Mona Lisa. The bank notes should form the actual colours and contours of the artwork, and the final piece should not be a mere abstract interpretation.”
The museum lent the artist money as well as paying him to produce the works. Accepting the art submitted does not invalidate the artist's requirement to repay the loan.
The"artist" seems like the kind of guy who would easily say the quality of "the material (cash) they gave me wasn't good so I used something else instead. So we're even."
He's quoted as saying the musemum gained a lot more in publicity without mentioning the publicity he himself got while stealing the museum's money.
I would have thought choosing to exhibit the two pieces after inspecting them would be seen as acceptance by the museum.